202 HOLISM AND EVOLUTION chap. 



genes inside the nucleus of the germ-cell for the food that 

 came from the body-cells, that Natural Selection was thus 

 already at work inside the germ-cell, and that it was the 

 vigorous, well-fed surviving genes that shaped the course 

 of the resulting variation in the direction to which the 

 individual had thus contributed. In this way the body- 

 cells and the individual modifications of the parent might 

 have some vague and indirect influence on the germ-cells 

 and their offspring. This arbitrary and unsatisfactory 

 hypothesis has found no favour and probably amounts to 

 no more than a confession of failure on the part of Weis- 

 mann to maintain his doctrine in its extreme form. To 

 transfer the venue of the struggle of existence from an arena 

 where we can watch and observe it among organisms to the 

 inner arcana of the germ-cells, where it is beyond observation 

 and where its operation, if any, is pure guesswork, is not a 

 helpful hypothesis, and can only be a last desperate resort 

 of a theory in distress. Weismann no doubt felt the difficulty 

 keenly, but he saw no way out of it, and his hypothesis of 

 Germinal Selection was no way out. 



The dilemma is indeed a most formidable one, not only 

 for Weismann but also for all current views of Darwinism. 

 On the one hand, there is the negative evidence, the absence 

 of any clear and incontrovertible case where mere individual 

 modifications have been transmitted to offspring. On the 

 other hand, there are the very numerous cases where the 

 disappearance of certain characters can only be satisfactorily 

 explained on the assumption that modifications due to 

 disuse of an organ have become hereditary. Again, there 

 are the still more numerous cases where parts of the body 

 have been constantly used in certain ways and have finally 

 become specialised organs with which animals are now born 

 ready-made. There is also the class of cases mentioned 

 by Herbert Spencer in his controversy with Weismann and 

 never satisfactorily answered, where, for instance, the 

 sensitiveness of the finger or tongue (now hereditary) is 

 compared with the much smaller sensitiveness of the back 

 or other parts of the body, which have never been used as 



